BJP claims Foreigners Act 'need of hour', Oppn dubs it 'self-contradictory'

Enforced on September 1, the law establishes a Bureau of Immigration and empowers police head constables and above to arrest without warrant those violating foreigners' immigration rules in India

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

The BJP has maintained that the Centre's recent order to grant residential status to non-Muslim with invalid travel documents from neighbouring countries couldn't have been better timed, even as the opposition perceived it to be a strategy to prevent the party's apple cart from getting upset in poll-bound states of the east.

Interpretations of the order across the political spectrum ranged from being the first step towards granting citizenship to persecuted Hindus who crossed over from Bangladesh in recent times to a recipe for a civil war among communities.

As per the exemption order, persons belonging to minority communities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who sought shelter in India on grounds of religious persecution on or before December 31, 2024 without valid travel documents, would not be prosecuted under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

Enforced on September 1, the law mandates creation of a Bureau of Immigration and grants police officers, ranked head constable or above, the authority to arrest without warrant anyone suspected of contravening mandatory immigration requirements of foreigners in India.

In a departure from the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 that earmarked December 31, 2014 as the entry deadline for non-Muslim immigrants to India as eligibility for granting of citizenship, the latest order extends the entry date for such immigrants by another 10 years as grounds for their non-prosecution.

Notwithstanding the CAA's 2014 deadline, refugees from Bangladesh have kept migrating to West Bengal because of the sharp change in that country's political scenario, which is under the domination of Islamic fundamentalists for the past year or so, said Mohit Roy, former convenor of the state BJP's refugee cell.

There is an urgent need to create a legal infrastructure under which these people can stay here and not be called illegal immigrants. This will save them from police harassment and disadvantages like bank accounts getting frozen, he said.

Roy maintained that the party had been demanding extension of entry deadline in the wake of a rapidly altered Bangladesh, where persecution of minorities has allegedly increased manifold in recent times.

Now that these refugees have been relieved of the stigma of illegal residents and are free of persecution fear, I believe it is only a matter of time before they will be allowed to apply for citizenship under CAA, he said.

Requesting anonymity, a BJP leader claimed that the party will derive political benefits from the move in the upcoming state polls, not only in Assam but also in Bengal.

The step couldn't have been better timed, he asserted.

Left-leaning economist and political analyst Prasenjit Bose, however, disagreed.

He argued that the new law and its exemption clause would only grant the police power to officially target migrant Bengali-speaking Muslims from West Bengal with greater vengeance than what they are doing now.

Since Muslims are not migrating from Bangladesh for religious persecution, Muslim migrants from Bengal will now officially become targets of Amit Shah's police. They will be labeled Bangladeshis and pushed out.

Currently, there are about 3 crore Muslims in Bengal and around 1.5 crore Hindus in Bangladesh, and such cross currents of migration could provoke a civil war, he warned.

Bose alleged that the move directly contradicted BJP's political narrative it crafted for bordering states like Bengal.

PM Modi speaks of changing demography in bordering districts, evidently meaning that illegal Muslim infiltrators have sharply increased in such regions. What is the basis of that claim sans data from a recent census? Secondly, if he is so worried about India getting filled up with infiltrators, why is he encouraging Hindus from Bangladesh to migrate? he asked.

Roy refuted the argument, claiming that the religious demographic balance between West Bengal and Bangladesh has dangerously tilted leaving Hindus here vulnerable.

Census figures from 2011 revealed that Muslim population in Bengal spiked from 20 to 27 per cent in previous 40 years despite some 70 lakh Hindu refugees having crossed over to India during the period. This was largely on account of illegal Muslim immigration, he stated.

Bose said that through these new laws, the BJP is trying to give finishing touches to the larger game plan of taking the partition logic to its logical conclusion.

CPI(M) politburo member Md Salim called the move a knee-jerk reaction by the BJP generated from its anxiety of losing support base among the Namashudra Hindus of Bengal.

It's like dangling a carrot before Namashudra Hindu voters before giving them a stick of unfulfilled promises. There is considerable disappointment with the BJP over CAA, and very few from among them have applied for citizenship from eastern India, he claimed.

The PM earlier called infiltrators termites' eating into the country's resources and employment opportunities. Yet, he now welcomes them with open arms, provided they are non-Muslims. In truth, he is trying to regain trust of people by building a narrative to polarise Hindu votes before the polls in Bengal and Assam, the apparatchik said.

CM Mamata Banerjee had lashed out at the BJP by terming the move a farce and an election gimmick.

But, the BJP seems confident about countering the TMC's diversionary tactic from CAA and NRC and reaping electoral benefits in the state.